Level 2 perspective-taking distinguishes automatic and non-automatic belief-tracking

Abstract

Little is known about whether human beings' automatic mindreading is computationally restricted to processing a limited kind of content, and what exactly the nature of that signature limit might be. We developed a novel object-detection paradigm to test adults' automatic processing in a Level 1 perspectivetaking (L1PT) context (where an agent's belief, but not his visuospatial perspective, is relevantly different) and in a Level 2 perspective-taking (L2PT) context (where both the agent's belief and visuospatial perspective are relevantly different). Experiment 1 uncovered that adults' reaction times in the L1PT task were helpfully speeded by a bystander's irrelevant belief when tracking two homogenous objects but not in the L2PT task when tracking a single heterogeneous object. The limitation is especially striking given that the heterogeneous nature of the single object was fully revealed to participants as well as the bystander. The results were replicated in two further experiments, which confirmed that the selective modulation of adults' reaction times was maintained when tracking the location of a single object (Experiment 2) and when attention checks were removed (Experiment 3). Our findings suggest that automatic mindreading draws upon a distinctively minimalist model of the mental that underspecifies representation of differences in perspective relative to an agent's position in space.

Visibly constraining an agent modulates observers’ automatic false-belief tracking

“…Analysis was undertaken on correct responses on ball-present trials 34 . To address our primary research aim, we performed a 3 (Version: Free-Agent; Constrained-Agent; Loose-Sheet) × 2 (Form: Hand-Placement; Foot-Placement) × 4 (Condition: P+A+; P+A−; P−A+; P−A− mixed model ANOVA.…”

“…Participants were tested individually at a Dell Optiplex 9,020 desktop (23″ screen with 16:9 aspect ratio). Following Edwards and Low 34 , the initial screen stated: "This is an object-detection task. Your job is to press a key as quickly as you can when you see something appear behind a wall".…”

“…Aside from the routine approach of profiling P−A+ versus P−A− responses within particular versions of the ball-detection task 30,34 , a few studies have also computed and analysed the resulting difference between the P−A− and P−A+ conditions across groups or manipulations 33,36 . We computed and compared participants' belief-tracking difference scores (i.e., P−A+ subtracted from P−A−) across task versions.…”

“…This variability may reflect unreliability in participants' belief tracking in the Constrained-Agent condition, which would explain why we found only anecdotal evidence against the presence of an P−A− versus P−A+ effect in the Constrained-Agent version, and why we did not find evidence that the belief-tracking score differed across the various versions of the ball-detection task. We also undertook an orthogonal analysis of the ball-present data to explore the influence of the agent's belief and the participant's belief 34 . We performed a 3 (Version: Free-Agent; Constrained-Agent; Loose-Sheet) × 2 (Form: Hand-Placement; Foot-Placement) × 2 (Belief Holder: P, A) × 2 (Belief: +, −) mixed model ANOVA.…”

“…The task is considered to target automatic belief tracking because no reference is made to the agent's belief about the ball's location. The critical finding, which has been well-documented [30][31][32][33][34][35][36] , is that, compared to a baseline situation in which neither the participant nor agent expected the ball to be present (P−A−), participants are faster to respond when only the agent expected the ball to be present (P−A+), implying that the agent's belief regarding the ball's location is automatically encoded. That is, there is a task-irrelevant effect of the agent's belief on the participant's performance.…”